Day 26-28: Berlin, Germany

We left Prague this morning and boarded a train to Berlin. While we were in Prague, we had checked the weather report in Berlin. Our 2nd day in Berlin was predicted to get up to 97 degrees! Europe doesn't have a lot of air condition, so we definitely wanted to make sure we got a hotel with A/C. It was more difficult than we thought! We booked an apartment through Airbnb which said it had A/C. But after a few texts with the owner, we realized what Europeans called A/C was a ventilator! So we ended up booking a room at Hotel B&B with A/C! We definitely did not regret our decision!

After we arrived in Berlin and checked into our hotel, we went to a restaurant recommended by the hotel that was down the road. It was delicious, but it was hot since there was no A/C at the restaurant! We stopped by a park along the river for Ariadne to play for a while before we headed home.

The next morning we got up and prepared ourselves for Berlin's heat wave. Today was the predicted 97 degree temperature and we had planned a 3 hour walking tour. When we arrived at the walking tour destination, we were informed we did not have enough people and it was too hot to go on the tour. The tour guide could tell we were disappointed and frustrated, so he told us about another walking tour company in Alexanderplatz. This walking tour was only 2 hours. The 97 degrees was bearable and the tour was excellent. We learned so much about East/West Germany during the tour. We saw the tv tour that the Germans called an eye sore and the Brandenburg Gate which once separated East and West Germany. We also passed by the hotel made famous when Michael Jackson held his baby out the window!

We walked to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, stood at a parking lot that Hitler's bunker used to be below, and walked by an old East Berlin building.

Next we got saw the Berlin Wall. The wall was a normal sized wall! According to the tour guide, there was another wall before the Berlin Wall. Very few people made it between those two walls (barbed wire, dogs, guards), so the wall did not have to be tall. We walked by Checkpoint Charlie which was the American crossing point for East and West Berlin.

We ended the tour at Bebelplatz which was the plaza where the Nazi book burning ceremonies too place. On the ground is a glass window which looks into a room with only empty shelves to memorialize the books that were burned.

After the tour, we ate lunch and then went to the DDR museum.  The museum depicted what life was like for East Berliners. We "drove" in an East Berlin car, "visited" an elementary school, walked through an apartment, and Ariadne took a phone call from the President's desk!

We ended the evening with dinner at Lon-Men's Noodle House. It was a very popular Taiwanese restaurant. We thought we would be waiting in a long line for dinner, but the heat must of kept people at home. We lucked out and were seated by the lone box fan cooling the restaurant!

Our last day in Berlin, we went to Charlottenburg Palace. The palace was designed from the Sophie Charlotte's ideas, but unfortunately she died before the completion. During World War II, the palace was badly damaged. It was interesting on tour when they would point out original buildings or artifacts or would say everything was lost during the war. We enjoyed the outside gardens. Ariadne enjoyed seeing all the ducks at the Carp Pond.

For a quick snack, we sampled Berlin's famous CurryWurst which was a hot dog with curry and ketchup on top. It was pretty tasty! Then we went to Tier Garden Park for a picnic lunch and a playground break!

Then we headed over to Berlin's Victory Column. We climbed up the tower for great views of Berlin. We ended our evening in East Berlin at a Food Truck market.